Walk-through of installing Ben Adida's Helios Election System on Ubuntu 20.10

• (optional) install VSCode or VSCodium for editing code, having an integrated terminal
• check python3 is installed with Ubuntu and, if not, install it
  • python3 --version
• install pip3
  • sudo apt install python3-pip
• install python3-venv sudo apt install python3-venv
• install Postgresql
  • sudo apt-get update
  • sudo apt install postgresql
  • sudo systemctl start postgresql@12-main (prompted by the installation)
  • sudo -i -u postgres (become the postgres user)
  • psql postgres (connect to the postgres database)
  • CREATE USER [your login name] WITH SUPERUSER; (create Helios database user)
  • CREATE DATABASE helios WITH OWNER [your login name]; (create Helios database)
  • \q (quit psql)
  • exit (logout as the postgres user)
  • psql helios (connect to the new helios database)
  • \l (list databases - check helios is there)
  • \q
• install RabbitMQ
  • sudo apt install rabbitmq-server

• setup Google OAuth authentication

  • in a browser go to: https://console.developers.google.com/apis (you should have a Google account)
  • select Credentials
  • Create a project and give it a name (eg Helios) then CREATE CREDENTIALS
  • OAuth client ID
  • CONFIGURE CONSENT SCREEN - select External then CREATE
  • Just complete the required fields (App name, User support email and Developer contact email) then SAVE AND CONTINUE
  • Under Scopes and Optional info add nothing just SAVE AND CONTINUE then on Summary page BACK TO DASHBOARD
  • select Credentials then CREATE CREDENTIALS
  • Application type is Web application
  • Name is your choice (eg Helios)
  • Authorised Javascript origins: http://localhost:8000
  • Authorised redirect URIs: http://localhost:8000/auth/after/
  • CREATE
  • copy Client ID and Client secret for using in Helios
  • Select Dashboard then ENABLE APIS AND SERVICES
  • Select Google People API and ENABLE

• download Helios code: in a browser

  • go to https://github.com/benadida/helios-server
  • under Code choose Download ZIP
  • once downloaded double-click the Zip arhive to unarchive it and move all to a project folder of your choice for working on (ie move code out of the Downloads folder)
• prepare helios
  • cd to your project folder
  • create a virtual environment python3 -m venv my-venv
  • activate the virtual environment: source my-venv/bin/activate
  • install all dependencies in requirements.txt:
    • python3 -m pip install wheel (in response to an error message)
    • sudo apt install libpq-dev (required for installation of psycopg2)
    • (in requirements.txt I upgraded celery to 5.0.0 and replaced pycrypto with pycryptodome for compatability with python 3.8)
    • python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
• safe storage of secrets
  • optional but if your code is kept on Github this is preferable to hard-coding your Google credentials into settings.py
  • python3 -m pip install django-environ
  • create an .env file with stored secrets:

    DBPWD=xxxx
    GOOGLESECRET=xxxx
    GOOGLEID=xxxx
    

  • in settings.py insert following after import os

    import environ
    
    # Read in secrets from .env file
    env = environ.Env()
    environ.Env.read_env()  
    DBPWD = env('DBPWD')
    GOOGLESECRET = env('GOOGLESECRET')
    GOOGLEID = env('GOOGLEID')
    

  • in settings.py:

    # google
    GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID = get_from_env('GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID', GOOGLEID)
    GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET = get_from_env('GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET', GOOGLESECRET)
    

  • add .env to .gitignore so it is not uploaded to Github
• in a separate terminal start celery
  • cd to your helios project
  • source my-venv/bin/activate
  • celery -A helios worker -l INFO
• back at first terminal, run helios
  • python3 manage.py makemigrations
  • ./reset.sh
  • python3 manage.py runserver
  • in a browser go to localhost:8000 (alternatively go to 127.0.0.1:8000 but change references to localhost in settings.py to 127.0.0.1 and in Google OAuth authentication replace localhost with 127.0.0.1)